Overview
- Rescue divers reached a terminal chamber and located five of the seven trapped villagers on Wednesday after about a week of searching.
- The survivors were found sitting on a rock, reported as weak and hungry but not critically ill, and rescuers have begun providing liquid and gel food plus basic medical checks.
- Teams must navigate a roughly 300–340 metre route with long flooded stretches and sections as narrow as about 23 inches, which forces divers to remove gear and makes a straight dive extraction unsafe.
- Rescuers say extraction will require more oxygen tanks, a refilling station, pumps and generators, and they continue searching for the two missing people while preparing a staged, safety‑first plan to bring the five out.
- The operation includes Thai specialist divers and international experts who worked on the 2018 Thai cave rescue, and it highlights local risks from villagers entering porous limestone caverns to look for gold despite repeated warnings.